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The proposed 2014-15 Ridgefield Town BudgetTown budget: $33.2 million, a 2.9 percent increase over current $32.3 budgetSchool budget: $85.2 million, a 2.86 percent increase over current $82.8 budget.Debt service $12.9 million, a 1.48 percent decrease over current $13.1 million budgetTotal town budget: $131.5 million, a 2.45 percent increase over the current $128.3 million budget.

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RIDGEFIELD -- What is the sound of one hand clapping? Maybe, the annual town budget hearing Wednesday.

Other than one comment from town anti-tax advocate Ed Tyrrell, no one spoke at the hearing, held at East Ridge Middle School. In fact, other than town officials, almost no one attended.

This is in stark contrast to prior years, said finance board chairman Dave Ulmer

"We've had 400 people in here some years,'' Ulmer said. "Tonight we had 2 or 3.''

The silence, in this case, probably denotes assent.

The proposed budget of $131.5 million is a 2.45 percent increase -- about $3.2 million -- over the current budget of $128 million

The two main components of the budget would rise at about the same pace.The proposed town operating budget would increase by 2.97 percent, from $32.3 million to $33.2 million -- an increase of less than $1 million.

The Board of Education's proposal for $85.2 million would increase by 2.86 percent over the current $82.6 budget -- an increase of more than $3.2 million.

And Marconi said, because of surpluses in town tax collection, conveyance taxes building fees and fees collected by the Parks and Recreation Department, the town is now looking at a $1.3 million surplus.

And while about $200,000 will have to be used to pay for cost overruns because of the severe winter, it will still mean the town will have $1.1 million surplus.

The finance board will meet at Town Hall three times next week -- Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday -- to complete its work on the proposed budget.

It will then go to a Town Meeting on May 5 and a referendum of May 13.

But when the three boards met in late 2013 for their annual budget planning session, Ulmer said the finance board could accept 3 percent increases in spending without demanding cuts.

The boards kept their end of the bargains. Because of that, and because of the lack of almost any public comment at the hearing, Ulmer said Wednesday he thought the budgets would largely remained unchanged.

Tyrrell -- a perennial critic of school spending -- was the only speaker at Wednesday's hearing.

He pointed out that while the selectmen did not add any new full-time positions to the town operations, the school board added 11.

"After this awful winter, as you drive around town and your car gets swallowed by a pothole, realize we are not hiring more highway workers, but be comforted that we will have four new technology staff,'' Tyrrell said. "If you pass a bad accident or are being tailgated by an aggressive driver, while we may not have any new policemen, we will have two new psychologists.''

Tyrrell acknowledged that the finance board is unlikely to cut those 11 positions from the school budget. Instead, he asked the board to use money from the town fund balance to keep an tax increase to below one percent "and maybe next to nothing at all.''